Thursday, December 21, 2006

of Rubber Chickens and Obscenities

Killing Game made global headlines during February of this year, when an actor, Thomas Lawinky, performing in a German production of the play, saw a critic that he despised sitting in the front row during a performance. The actor became furious and in the middle of a scene threw a rubber chicken that he happened to be holding at the critic, tore his notebook out of his hands and shouted obscenities at him until the man was forced to flee the theater out of fear and shame.

The critic was Gerhard Stadelmaier, famously conservative and disapproving of the theater (Frankfurt Schauspiel), which is known for it's violently theatrical and gory productions. Later, he wrote that "this attack on my freedom, which is nothing less than the freedom of the press" had left him deeply distressed: "Nothing like this has ever happened in the theatre. Never in the thirty years of my career as a theatre critic have I felt so besmirched, so abased, so insulted - and never have I felt such deep sorrow about the state of the theatre."

After the mayor called for the actor to be fired over the act of violence (the chicken didn't even scratch the critic), Lawinky resigned.